Turning from this very startling theoretical conclusion to the practicalities, let us inquire how electricity--which apparently exists, as it were, in embryo everywhere--can be made manifest. In so doing we shall discover that there are varying types of electricity, yet that these have a singular uniformity as to their essential properties. As usually divided--and the classification answers particularly well from the standpoint of the worker--electricity is spoken of as either statical or dynamical. The words themselves are suggestive of the essential difference between the two types. Statical electricity produces very striking manifestations. We have already spoken of it as theoretically due to the conditions of the electrons at rest. It must be understood, however, that the statical electricity will, if given opportunity, seek to escape from any given location to another location, under certain conditions, somewhat as water which is stored up in a reservoir will, when opportunity offers, flow down to a lower level. The pent-up static electricity has, like the water in the reservoir, a store of potential energy. The physicist speaks of it as having high tension. In passing to a condition of lower tension, the statical electricity may give up a large portion of its energy. If, for example, on a winter day in a cold climate, you walk briskly along a wool carpet, the friction of your feet with the carpet generates a store of statical electricity, which immediately passes over the entire surface of your body. If now you touch another person or a metal conductor, such as a steam radiator or a gas pipe, a brilliant spark jumps from your finger, and you experience what is spoken of as an electrical shock. If the day is very cold, and the air consequently very dry, and if you will take pains to rub your feet vigorously or slide along the carpet, you may light a gas jet with the spark which will spring from your finger to the tip of the jet, provided the latter is of metal or other conducting substance; and even if you attempt to avoid the friction between your feet and the carpet as much as possible, you may be constantly annoyed by receiving a shock whenever you touch any conductor, since, in spite of your efforts, the necessary amount of friction sufficed to generate a store of statical electricity. An illustration of the development of this same form of electricity, on a large scale, is supplied by the familiar statical machine, which consists of a large circle of glass, so adjusted that it may be revolved rapidly against a suitable friction producer. With such a machine a powerful statical current is produced, capable of generating a spark that may be many inches or even several feet in length,--a veritable flash of lightning. It is with such a supply of electricity conducted through a vacuum tube that the cathode ray and the Roentgen ray are produced.